Is Afghanistan going to be divided ?
THE British have tried to divide Afghanistan three times in the past.Finally, keeping in view the future strategy, they made it easy for themselves by distributing it for a certain period on the Durand Line in the Pashtun areas of present Pakistan.
Since the establishment of Pakistan, every regime in Afghanistan has strongly opposed this line and the reason is that the Establishment in Afghanistan has been stronger than the governments there.
On the other hand, for the last one hundred and thirty years, there have been global plans to further divide the country, but in the interests of the international community, this has not happened despite the fact that Afghanistan has been the victim of a continuous civil war in which four million people have lost their lives or became disabled.
The manner in which the United States entered Afghanistan after 9/11 was expected to ensure its presence in Afghanistan in any case by dividing Afghanistan, but the United States failed to do so due to pressure from Russia and China.
Afghanistan has become a global game-changer for the region and in the past all the plans of the major powers in this regard have failed.
But now the signs are that there is a plan to create a new country consisting of twelve provinces of Afghanistan.
The United States wants to create a new geography of the region and is interested in creating new states here based on modern nationalism.
This division of Afghanistan will not be based on nationality but on administrative basis and Pashtuns will be divided into many parts.
According to opinion polls in the United States, when the US withdrew from Afghanistan, most of Americans were unhappy with the decision.
Addressing those who worried about the decision, President Joe Biden said “there was no easy way to be out of Afghanistan after 20 years.
Therefore, I do not apologize for my decision.” After a six-month silence over the statement, the President told a news conference at the White House that the United States had spent one billion dollar per week in Afghanistan for 20 years and we couldn’t afford it indefinitely.
That is why Afghanistan is becoming a graveyard for other countries.According to President Joe Biden, Afghanistan’s unity with so many provinces is a failure for any government there and the United States withdrew its forces from there because it is not possible to keep Afghanistan united under one government.
This statement by the US President is of special significance to those countries which share borders with Afghanistan.
When the United States left Afghanistan, it recruited its own people into all the institutions that are now being used.
That is why the current set-up of Afghanistan has not yet got on well with any of the neighbouring countries.
Other countries, far from it, these people are still failing to bring Pakistan closer to them.
A new wave of concern has swept Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Russia and some other countries since the US President’s statement.
In Afghanistan, this statement is being considered as anti-Pashtun policy while Pakistan and China are not in favour of dividing Afghanistan.
The Taliban government has expelled 3,000 people from its ranks and administration in response to the same statement.
It is certainly a difficult task for the United States to carry out its plan because even after 130 years of war, if Afghanistan could not be torn to pieces, how can now the outsider United States complete its plan so easily?
The United States will once again push the beleaguered Afghanistan toward civil war and reactivate its supportive groups.
The repeated attacks on hospitals, mosques and other places since the formation of the Taliban government are part of this strategy.
It seems that Kabul is once again on the brink of a civil war, but now it remains to be seen how the Taliban government will deal with it and how much role China and Russia will play in this civil war.
—The writer is contributing columnist, based in Islamabad.
